Last Saturday, during the “Yakuza 6: The Song of Life ‘Essence of Art’ Exhibit” live stream at Gallery Nucleus, SEGA’s Yakuza series Producer Daisuke Sato was asked, “Is this truly the end for Kiryu, or could we maybe expect to see him in future Yakuza games, or maybe crossing over into other games?” — which immediately lead to the room erupting in “TEKKEN!” chants, leading to the following response from Sato:

“As far as it comes down to the whole Tekken thing, if Harada-san actually says he wants to use Kiryu, then hey,” — which lead to another eruption of cheers from the crowd in attendance. He then referenced Kazuma’s previous crossover appearance in Everybody’s Golf 6 as a DLC character. It certainly seems that SEGA and the Yakuza team are wholeheartedly on board with Kiryu potentially joining the King of Iron Fist Tournament sometime in the future, but it’ll of course take Katsuhiro Harada and Bandai Namco Entertainment to make that final call. At the end of the day, it’s certainly a positive development to have their blessing, and could bring his eventual inclusion into the series one step closer. You can hear Sato’s full comments — and crowd reactions — at the 55 minute, 27 second mark of the video below.

Would you like to see the Dragon of Dojima cross fists with the Mishimas in Tekken 7? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.